3D imaging system for contrast enhancement in fluorescence microscopy based on innovative grid projection technique permits high quality optical sections to be roduced quickly
Carl Zeiss MicroImaging has introduced the ApoTome, a new 3D imaging system for contrast enhancement in fluorescence microscopy based on innovative grid projection techniques using HBO light source.
This new technique permits optical sections to be produced quickly and with very good quality.
It dramatically improves clarity and performance level of digital imaging workstations in neuroscience, cell and developmental biology and can be used with a variety of fluorochromes such as DAPI, FITC, Rhodamine, GFP or YFP.
The classical challenges in capturing optical sections in 2D and 3D fluorescence imaging, particularly of thick specimens, have been solved says the company.
The ApoTome slider is simply inserted into the plane of the field diaphragm of the fluorescence beam path of the Zeiss Axioplan 2 IE or Axiovert 200 microscopes.
No stray light from other focal planes, time-consuming reconstructions or long calculations and post-processing.
Furthermore, optical sections are a major requirement for 3D reconstruction.
"ApoTome is a small revolution in fluorescence microscopy," says Hubert Bauch, product manager at Carl Zeiss.
"In addition to providing 2D and 3D images that are free of stray light, ApoTome offers better image quality and definition when the thickness of the optical section measures one Airy unit - corresponding to the optimum thickness of the optical section with a good signal-to-noise ratio.
With thick sections in particular, ApoTome provides image quality never achieved before in terms of both its definition and its contrast.
Just as important, it can be quickly and inexpensively retrofitted to existing Zeiss Axiovert 200 and Axioplan 2 IE microscope systems.
The development of the ApoTome is based on the principle of fringe projection.
While this approach is not new, Carl Zeiss has now created a reliable and artefact-free unit.
With the ApoTome, the image of a grid structure is projected into the focal plane of the specimen and moved into three defined positions via a scanning mechanism.
A digital image is recorded at each grid position, and the three raw images are combined into an optical section with improved contrast and better resolution.
The grid structures are no longer visible in the image.
